The Kyoto Protocol, which was conceived in 1997 but came into force only in February 2005, binds member countries to a predetermined lowering of greenhouse gas emissions to a level that would be 5.2% less than what they were in 1990, and countries are to achieve this target by 2012. This will hopefully bring down the level of global warming. Small wonder then that insurers are waiting eagerly to see how far it succeeds in ensuring member compliance.

Catastrophe insurers, the world over, are more concerned about disaster mitigation and preparedness than they are about getting more business. The year 2004, and more so 2005, were years of fear, with insured losses from natural calamities running into billions of dollars. Insurers have realized that unless preventive measures are taken and awareness and preparedness measures built amongst the insurable population, claims are going to be very high.

There's no gainsaying that global warming can be attributed partly to the naturally evolving climatic cycles. Several studies on this phenomenon have pointed out that the increase of 1-1.5° F in the global surface average temperature in the last century was largely the result of increased heat trapping emissions. These studies have also correlated the rising temperatures to the unusually inclement weather conditions and the severe and frequent natural disasters we have been witnessing recently. Industrialization and urbanization have triggered off increased heat trapping greenhouse gas emissions, which are almost 25% higher today than 150 years ago, before the onset of industrialization.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 jointly by the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization, has come out with a rather more ominous portent: The earth's average surface temperature will increase between 2.5° F and 10.4° F between 1990 and 2100, unless really effective measures are taken to rein in gas emissions. Incidentally, it was the unexpected acceleration in temperature rise and natural disasters over the past decade, which prompted the IPCC to take a look and revise its earlier predictions on global warming.

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